


all my wasted youth

by jellyfish_girl (orphan_account)



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Bittersweet Ending, Cynical, Emotional Manipulation, Implied/Referenced Cheating, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Past Relationships, Suicide Attempt, Unresolved Emotional Tension, and he will eventually, jazz composer!kun, just not today, model!ten, the trio just wants kun to be okay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-29
Updated: 2019-11-29
Packaged: 2021-02-25 20:55:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21601798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/jellyfish_girl
Summary: maybe if he was prettier, ten would actually praise him. maybe, if his music fit more of ten’s style, ten would have listened to the personally composed pieces that kun made him. maybe if kun didn’t want to die all the time, ten wouldn’t have felt weighed down by him. maybe if kun hadn’t purposefully let go of that tree when they were in college, ten would have actually loved him.loved him.
Relationships: Chittaphon Leechaiyapornkul | Ten & Qian Kun, Kim Dongyoung | Doyoung/Qian Kun
Comments: 2
Kudos: 40





	all my wasted youth

**Author's Note:**

> OKAY this is the complete opposite of 'the god of high school' like.... complete 360 flip. this is unedited as of 12:23 am so i will probably edit tomorrow because i wrote this mf in 2 hours and cried during it. 
> 
> i want to trigger warn this right now because. well because i really wanted this to be a raw story. with real, raw emotions that i have experienced. so extreme trigger warnings for suicide attempt, self deprecating thoughts, cheating on a significant other, and bugs. there is some bug imagery in here that may disturb readers so please be warned!!! 
> 
> this story is sort of like an rant work for me, as i have uhh felt these feelings and attempted before. i wrote this mainly because i was really sad and really upset over something. hopefully this can give me the tiniest bit of closure.

present day. april 2020. 

deep within the subconscious while drinking coffee. 

when kun was in his senior year in high school, he met ten. 

ten was a flurry of short black hair and tanned skin and a nasally voice that spit out remarks to anyone who thought it would be humorous to comment on his clothes or his high profile. ten was the most spontaneous work of art, a world of exciting and wide smiles and weird clothes and love for dad jokes. a whirlwind. a hurricane. some other form of devastating weather phenomenons. ten was the fresh breath of air kun had been looking for since the beginning of his high school year. he was surrounded by obnoxious students who preached end cyberbullying and yet spread nasty rumours about their counterparts as a way to fuel their egos and hide behind their insecurities. ten was the strength that gave kun a little bit of hope that maybe he would live past the age of seventeen. he truly had no way of knowing his future, a maze of obstacles and twists that were thrown at him since his early childhood. 

kun can’t forget—refuses to forget—the day that ten actually walked up to him after kun’s relentless stare-flirting, asking if there was going to be a problem. 

“only if you keep looking as beautiful as you.” the words slipped out easily, kun surprised by the confident facade that possessed him for a moment. it must have been a good day, something in the universe telling ten to accept the compliment and move on, because he blushed. a beautiful pink shade that rested gently on the tops of his apple cheeks and didn’t fade until he broke eye contact with kun. 

there weren't any sparks. there wasn’t just an explosion of love. there probably wasn’t even an ounce of genuine glamour or colorfulness. because present kun can look into johnny’s eyes in a coffee shop and admit that love isn’t real and that he dropped his defenses too early because, again, ten is a whirlwind. 

whirlwinds carry themselves with the same energy of storms. they’re all-knowing, all powerful beings that aren’t “tied down by the ties of a relationship.” they don’t need something with baggage. they don’t want or need to carry anybody else's baggage because they’re quite literally invincible. they block it out and don’t have the need to talk about their own baggage. but it grows, it spreads. they’re not going to talk about it. so it’s gonna grow and it’s going to get worse. no one wants to look weak. eventually, they’re gonna give you their baggage—offhandedly, in the middle of a date to the park—and you’re going to have to carry it and trudge through a swamp or an airport because now you have both of your guys’s baggage to carry. 

and when you open yourself up, even a little bit, there’s no possible way it’s as half as bad as theirs. no fucking way. you don’t have a right to complain about anything. you have to be there for the other person without so much as a little bit of a _‘thank you, honeybear,’_ or a _‘i appreciate it, baby,’_ because fuck your feelings. fuck the way it makes you feel and fuck even thinking about feeling empty on the inside. 

present-day kun can sit and play the piano with a little more happiness than before ten broke up with him because he knows that there’s not a body sleeping in the room next door complaining about how tired he’s going to be in the morning because the piano is so loud. or how can he _please_ support ten, at least once? it wouldn't be hard since ten makes the most amount of money. how fucking hard is it? how hard is it to understand. 

[ _“when i say jump, you ask how high, honey.”_ this honey isn’t sweet like its name hints to. it’s derogatory, used to worm its way into kun’s mind and sit there and rot.] 

kun pushes this down, because he’s not going to ruin johnny’s day anymore than he already has. he’s not going to push him and ten’s baggage onto johnny. sometimes, kun looks into the mirror and sees chains wrapped around him. they’re not always there, if he’s seen jungwoo that day and actually fucking laughed since the _thing_ happened, then no. they won’t hang off his body like christmas decorations. but when he sees ten’s face on a billboard or sees him talking on e! news, he sees them wrapped around his chest and thighs, cutting off the blood at his wrists. his face is blue until he shakes his head and sees he’s a normal person without them hanging off him. 

he wants to finally be okay. 

the _thing_ still haunts him. he remembers the voicemail and the way he fell down on his knees and let the tears come. he lets the tears come and flow down his cheeks and neck and jugular and land on his nice new slacks that yuta _just_ bought him and cries until johnny comes to check on him and throws kun’s phone on the couch and lifts him into a hug. 

_some fucking christmas that was._

he feels cursed, cursed to remember this _thing._ it tastes that expires soju and whiskey on late monday nights and quiet whispers of regrets. it rests in the back of his brain, a back burner, and sometimes it moves it the front by his own hand. he hates remembering this, hates how ugly it makes him feel, how everything he wanted was right there in front and he let it slip away. 

he reiterates this to johnny multiple times, even now in this coffee shop and johnny shakes his head. 

“it wasn’t your fault.”

what was the it? the breaking up part? the part where he almost died after the voicemail? 

it’s a combination of both. the combination of him wanting to die, the combination of the phone call and ten leaving him alone in the dust for a bigger, brighter career and a bigger apartment. 

because, when you put it like that, somehow it sort of feels like it might have been his fault. 

he’s not going to try to convince johnny otherwise because it would be useless. 

doesn’t matter anyway. the relationship is in the past, a scar that kun won’t forget. 

talking about it is salt to the wound. 

maybe if he was prettier, ten would have actually praise him. maybe, if his music fit more of ten’s style, ten would have listened to the personally composed pieces that kun made him. maybe if kun didn’t want to die all the time, ten wouldn’t have felt weighed down by him. maybe if kun hadn’t purposefully let go of that tree when they were in college, ten would have actually loved him. 

loved him. 

kun loathes himself for still loving ten. kun knows that him crying every night on the phone with yuta makes yuta loathe him. makes jungwoo sigh and purse his lips in exhaustion when kun talks about it. makes johnny want to launch him into a pool before kun realizes that maybe it wasn’t actually love, a figment of lust and the unwillingness to let go. 

kun hates himself for still loving ten. 

he wants the burn to go away. 

-

christmas. around 9:30 pm.

jungwoo’s penthouse. annual christmas party. 

the date and location were an essential part of this being the worst day in kun’s life. ten’s absence struck a nerve with jungwoo, johnny and yuta. a raw nerve that had been opened during their years of high school and had reopened during their adult years. except ten was a full grown fucking adult who could make full grown adult decisions and still hung onto the notion that kun would do anything and let him do anything he wanted as long as he tacked on an ‘i love you’ to any text he sent about being unable to make it. 

jungwoo had no idea how the modeling industry worked, but he would like to believe he knows a little something about being a good person and being a good boyfriend and that any rich, vip exclusive party where there would be really hot models and possibly illegal strippers and drugs should come _after_ a boyfriend who already deals with the pressures of an excruciating job. 

something about ten had always thrown jungwoo off, made johnny question his real intentions and made yuta pretend he didn’t exist unless he was with kun. all of the suspicions hidden behind carefully guarded smiles and fake laughs that even kun would notice were fake. ten would have known better than to believe he was actually funny if he had spent more time around the trio instead of going out and partying all of his nights away only for kun to come over because the apartment lacked ten’s expensive perfume he received in pr. 

it was freezing cold outside on the terrace. jungwoo lit a cigarette and held it between his cold, numb fingers before kun walked out on the balcony. he sniffled before letting out, “ten and i split.” 

_pitiful. pathetic. void._

jungwoo stopped inhaling. the nicotine and smoke caught in his lungs, making him cough for a second before he turned to kun. 

his eyes were glassy. red. stony. they scintillated in the city’s lights, round with misery and dejection. 

“you—you what?” 

kun reached for the cigarette, jungwoo handing it to him before he took a deep breath in. 

_exhale._

“we split.” 

jungwoo nodded. 

“was. was it—was it mutual?” 

kun throws the cigarette down. shakes his head. turns on his heel and walks back into the apartment. 

jungwoo follows him, noticing johnny and yuta murmuring over something inside the small kitchen. kun sits down at the table and puts his head in his hands. 

and he screams. 

it’s bloodcurdling, his voice cracking halfway through. 

and then he cries. 

he cries into jungwoo’s side as jungwoo runs his fingers through his hair. he cries while yuta paces back and forth throughout the kitchen and whispers about how ten’s a fucking bitch. he cries as johnny stoically finishes dinner and lays it in front of everyone and hugs kun. 

he was inconsolable. as most are after a breakup, but refused to be a burden to anyone else for the night and headed home. walked through the straining lights of new york city, the saturation of lifeless theater productions and billboards before he made it to his apartment and walked up twelve flights of stairs despite his weak knees and stood at the top of the roof and looked down at the abyss of the sidewalk. 

without ten, life feels empty. feels gross and disgusting. without ten’s love, kun cannot live. 

and then, he felt the wind blow through his hair and clothes. and then—

then jungwoo got a call. 

[ _“is this kim jungwoo?” “yes, this is him. can i help you, miss?” “we have a patient, qian kun here. we don’t know all the details but you are his emergency contact.” “what happened? is he okay?” “it is believed he may have tried to commit suicide. he is in critical condition.”_ ] 

and he started crying, blubbering to johnny and yuta, both laying in bed fuming over the night, that _they had to go right now._

the hospital smelled of dead skin and cleaning products. the putrid smell of death hung in the air. 

and kun. the hospital room smelled of his cologne. 

when kun wakes up, he sees an exhausted johnny talking to a doctor outside the door. jungwoo is sleeping on yuta’s shoulder, cheeks and eyes reddened from crying. yuta’s eyes are twitching from no sleep. yuta sees kun blink his eyes open, launching from his chair. jungwoo wakes up, eyes welling with tears at kun’s awakening. they both run to him, johnny following also noticing his friend’s consciousness. 

kun looks at them all, their faces to close and yet so far away. he cries. 

he wasn’t _supposed_ to wake up. he didn’t _want_ to wake up. 

they all think he’s crying because he’s alive. they coo and tell him it’s okay now, he’s safe now, nothing can _hurt_ him now. 

he cries harder. 

it was just like the time he fell put of the tree on purpose. he didn’t want to be alive anymore. he hated being alive. he wanted it to end. 

but he still woke up in a hospital bed with an iv stuck in his arm and a deeper unwillingness to live. 

\- 

present day. april 2020.

a little bit after meeting johnny for coffee. 

3 weeks of being in the psych ward. multiples therapy session with none other than a patron at johnny’s club was the aftermath of the attempt. 

[ _“i recognize you. you’re the pianist at city 127, right? this isn’t technically professional but, i’m a huge fan of your work. you should publish them and see if you can put them on spotify or something.”_ ]

his name is doyoung. he has no children, no boyfriend or girlfriend, lives alone with his three cats. his favorite color is light blue and his favorite food is huo guo. he gives kun his number in case they want to hang out outside of sessions. kun would like to believe it’s going well, whatever is _it_ is. 

present-day kun looks back on that night and then looks back into his mirror. some chains still hang off of him. his under eyes are purple-ish. his phone is opened up, a stream of texts from johnny saying how they should catch up, the club’s been busy, etcetera. kun smiles at them. his skin feels tight, like it’s not his own still. he turns back to the mirror and pulls on his face. stretches it, molds it into a mess. he pulls at his lips and feels the skin break a bit. he pulls at his eyelids and waterline, seeing the pink underneath the skin and the eye veins on his eyes on the verge of exploding from stress and lack of sleep. he lifts his eyebrows up and down, looking at his forehead wrinkles. he’ll get more if he keeps pulling. 

it’s 5:30. 

he itches at his arms, feeling as if bugs have crawled under his scars and laid there. 

he looks back down at his phone and picks it up, heading for his voicemails. 

he looks for _his_ number and taps the message. 

he’s considering just reading the voice-to-text translation of the message to avoid hearing his voice. 

his mind clouds over itself and he presses the play button. 

[ _hey, kun. um_ —”there’s a cough and female voice. he shudders at the rememberance. “— _s-so i bet you’re wondering why i’m not there and i. i just want to apologize. for leading you on. it can’t really be leading anymore, though, can it? u-um mainly because, i-i, i’ve been wanting to tell you this_ —” a sudden hiccup, “— _for a while. a w-while back… when i went to the party in november…. i. i might have slept with someone? actually, it’s not a question. i s-slept with someone. a girl. her name is r_ _osé… a-and i think i might like her.”_

he remembers that drunken slur, the way his heart dropped at the information. the love of his life, of his already pathetic life, had slept with someone else. he continued to listen, seemingly frozen again in the moment, unable to press the stop button. unable to press the button that said ‘ _no more, please no more i don’t want to hear anymore of this’._

“ _a-and you hold me back. y-you don’t care about me anymore. you’re always so sad or you… you play your stupid piano more than you have sex with me. that’s why i cheated on you. a-and i can’t be held down anymore, kun. you hold me down, and i can’t love you anymore, especially when y-you make me so sad. so. i’m not coming home tonight. i’m g-going to her house a-and i’ll get my stuff later from your apartment.”_ there’s a long pause. he hears the laughs of drunk people, partying and listening to mumble rap songs. he stares at his phone screen, the blue light going straight to his head. _“s-so, goodbye kun. i’m_ —” and the message cuts.] 

he puts the phone down. and looks back into the mirror. there are chains wrapped around his waist, squeezing tightly. some have tangled themselves across his chest and arms. his neck is being strangled by one and another holds his ankles together. he’s always wondered what ten was trying to say to him at the end of the message. it’s abrupt. like somebody made him cut if off for another kiss. for another drink. he wraps his arms around his shoulders and hugs tightly. he looks outside at the bright sun and blue sky. it looks dimmed. tears well in his eyes as he opens his mouth in a small cry. he was sure that ten wouldn’t leave him. ten wouldn’t forget their flirting and pining and hugs and kisses and smiles and dates. he looks back and realizes that it was _his_ flirting and pining. _his_ unreciprocated hugs and kisses. the dates _he_ would always plan and pay for, though ten bragged about his cash grabs and modelling gigs. 

the tears slip down his face in quick succession. streaking down his face and neck and reaching his chest. he swipes at them, but they’re still there. wet and haunting him. he doesn’t know how long he’s standing next to his bed crying, until his phone’s pinging snaps him out of it. 

he stares down at his phone, seeing doyoung’s contact pop up. 

**[Doyoung]**

_Hey, Kun! Just checking on you. I have a couple patients tomorrow but.._

_I was wondering if you would like to go to the new bookstore that opened? It’s pretty quiet there and a friend of mine recommended it for us! It’s okay if you can’t or if you have to work, I was going to visit the club anyway so I could steal Jungwoo’s banana bread recipe :)_

_Let me know if you can! - D_

he always signs off with capital ‘ _d’_ even though kun fully knows it’s doyoung texting. he finds it endearing though. he reaches for his phone. 

**[Me]**

_I’ll check my schedule late tonight with Johnny and see if I’ll have to take off._

_Of course I want to go, thank you for asking me._

_thanks for being the one to ask me first,_ remains unsaid. unsent. kun tries to not let ten ruin this moment between him and doyoung, tries hard to not let the memories of ten being hesitant to even spend time with him ruin the bit of serotonin he receives from texting doyoung. 

he stares longingly at his sheets, laying his phone down before he crawls underneath them. 

the heat suffocates him. the roaches underneath his skin crawl and skitter, restless from the mention of ten. the thought of ten being so unloving and leaving kun to attempt to end his own life because the thought of living without ten’s “love” was unbearable. 

kun closes his eyes, thinking on how, one day, he’ll be able to remember ten’s too-long presence without feeling the ugliness under his skin. he still has miles to walk, miles to travel before he will finally be over this. maybe he’ll never get over this. maybe it’ll linger in his soul forever. 

but. 

for now, he’ll lay in the mistakes of his wasted youth and silk sheets and think of doyoung’s smile stretching across his face while he plays the piano for him. 

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> thank u mo for giving me the ship. i just didn't know who to make it based on. 
> 
> i hope you enjoyed.
> 
> i ALSO want to mention how i don’t think ten would be or is like the asshole i wrote him as. ten is one of my favorite idols but it was essential to the story. 
> 
> i listened to dear evan hansen and included the tree part because that shit hits different now. 
> 
> here’s my [twitter](https://mobile.twitter.com/H3RSONA)
> 
> xx


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